50 years later, Vancouver-composer remembers birth of soundscapes

50 years later, Vancouver-composer remembers birth of soundscapes

'I was surrounded by people who were listening all the time' says Hildegard Westerkamp

"A Vancouver-based composer says the 50th anniversary of a seminal B.C. project in the field of audio soundscapes should be celebrated.

"We're so used to designing an environment for the eye, but we're not naturally inclined to design an environment for the ear," said Hildegard Westerkamp, a musician who began her career recording sounds around the city.

In 1968, the composer R. Murray Schafer started the World Soundscape Project at Simon Fraser University.

The goal was to record and catalogue the sounds of the physical environment, and to explore ways to preserve the sounds of the natural world in harmony with the urban sounds humans make..."